In this weeks session of creative play were were given the opportunity to re-visit rapid prototyping. Many visitors were in the building, so we were tasked with designing quick sets and characters to produce a 40 minute animation on the ground floor for viewers to watch. The design process took up the morning while we animated in the afternoon. I was in a team with Madeline and Rowena – the team I’d be in for the remainder of creative play, and I definitely feel like we work excellently in a team. The communication between us is great and we compromise where necessary while allowing everyone to have creative input to the task. The other half of the day was spent being briefed on our up and coming end of year project, which I’m extremely excited for. I’ll speak more on it in next weeks blog, but I’m looking forward to the challenge and the learning experience I’ll gain.
I thoroughly enjoyed this session of creative play. It allowed me to be creative as a part of a collaborative team. While we touched upon rapid prototyping in a previous session I enjoyed this much more as it was almost self-guided. We got to choose what to do and the method in which to do it in. We didn’t really incorporate the techniques learned previously to develop ideas as there just wasn’t enough time, so as a group we decided to just start prototyping while the ideas developed and adapted as time went on.
Rowena and Madeline focused on the characters, as well as crafting trees and benches. I created quick buildings to use for the set and with this work completed we went to animate with no real idea what we were animating. Upon finding the armature available to us we decided to have it destroy our set – just for fun. I found this a great learning experience as it gave me insight into how adaptable you have to be when working on quick-turn around projects. You can develop a plan as much as you want, but don’t expect to always stick to it perfectly. Being able to take ideas, test them and mould it into something else is an extremely valuable skill to have for industry. Adaptability I found wasn’t just beneficial to me, but to the group as a whole too. If each of us were unable to make compromises and not get too attached to just one idea then it would make the group and ultimately the project suffer in the long run. Collaboration, I’m beginning to understand, is at the heart of any project. It’s important to realise we’re all working towards one goal – to create something great. It isn’t about us. Like a band, each instrument is as vital as the other and they have to work together to sound good.
Myself and the group are extremely happy and proud of the animation we produced. In total we only spent 20 minutes on it – so of course it isn’t good – but it’s a prototype. It’s interesting to see the beginning of an idea as it allows us to identify problems and positives of it before jumping straight in to making the finished product. It gives us the ability to look ahead and iron out any problems we faced during the prototyping. During the animation we tasked two people to animate while the other documented using my phone. We switched a few times to ensure everybody got a change to do each task to make it fairer on each other and for everyone to get the full experience and enjoyment out of it.
Overall I highly enjoyed this session of creative play as did the other members of my group. We all get along really well which makes it more enjoyable as it gives us the opportunity to bounce of one another creatively. I’m beginning to find through these experiences that I work better in a group, rather than alone. Working alone is something I’m used to and thought I enjoyed mainly because I hadn’t found many people I was compatible working with, but that’s slowly changing. I really value the experiences I’m having in this module, it’s helping me uncover things about myself and working habits.
Joshua JM 